For someone who so despised the original Carroll classic as a child, what ultimately drew you back to this story, to research Alice Liddell and to create this tale of good versus evil in the world of Wonderland?

Looking back at the series of events that lead me to write THE LOOKING GLASS WARS there is a pattern where the book was continually being thrust at me -- demanding my attention.  As a boy I resisted the push and really resented it. As an adult I came across the book while staying at an old beach hotel in mexico where there was nothing to read except a worn copy of.......Alice in Wonderland.  I sat out on the roof and read it all night long. This time I discovered the book to be magical and irreverent and imaginative.  More years passed and I found myself in the British Museum staring at an incomplete deck of illuminated cards which triggered images of a very different Wonderland  Three was the magic number and I think I began writing the book at that moment.  The book I always wanted to read. 

With The Looking Glass Wars, you've taken a rather dark twist on the lighthearted children's fable Alice in Wonderland.  Do you feel the youth of today is used to more violence and darkness in the many forms of media that they are inundated with and that this interpretation will be more palatable than the saccharine nature of the original Alice story and will garner a whole new legion of fans?

The darker twist you mention is really only one element of THE LOOKING GLASS WARS.  At the same time, Lewis Carroll’s ‘lighthearted children’s fable’  to me at least has always had a certain unnerving darkness as this lost child encounters quite a few malevolent and unreasonable characters in her adventure. As for the youth of today -- if they find anything about LGW more palatable than the original I believe it will be the difference in the storytelling style.  While the original Alice is episodic without any real narrative drive, LGW is an archetypal quest as the reluctant hero must return from exile to claim her throne. Yes, there are battle scenes but more than anything I think I have written an adventure with a strong narrative drive and this is what the readers  (both young and old) I’ve met and spoken with seem to respond to the most.

I'm curious to know why of all the characters that inhabit the original Wonderland you choose to give a more meaty role to the Hatter character making him a hero.  And for that matter, how did you come to write the Cheshire cat into the role of an assassin? 

Well it really wasn’t a conscious choice to make the Mad Hatter a heroic royal body guard.  The Mad Hatter is such a familiar character even to those who have never read Alice in Wonderland -- and his ‘madness’ had so much energy that I suppose I was attracted to the potential of this character.  Once I saw the Mad Hatter as a bodyguard with the iconic hat as his signature weapon the character took off and grew from there. But the character really only became ‘meaty’ after the first edition of LGW came out in the UK and readers -- particularly the boys -- told me how much they liked Hatter Madigan and that they wanted to know more about his 13-year-search.  That was when I decided to do the comic series tracking Royal Bodyguard Hatter Madigan’s separate story as he searches the earth for the lost princess. So it was really fan feedback that sent Hatter Madigan to the next level of stardom.

As for the Cheshire Cat there is nothing innocent about that grin.  The notion of having some sort of trojan horse be the entry point for Redd’s attack on Heart Palace led to the cat as a kitten who could morph to bestial proportions and from there the character continued to grow into Redd’s top assassin. 

I understand that you have far-reaching plans for The Looking Glass Wars saga to continue not only with your trilogy of books, but I also see that there are graphic novels in the works.  I've seen a preview of Hatter M.  What else do you have planned to come out in this format?

The first mini-series of Hatter M was in essence a spin-off storyline but what’s unusual is I used this storyline to launch the mythology of The Looking Glass Wars before there was any public awareness of the novel here in the states. Reviewers and interviewers who were curious  with regard to the background and source material for the comic were always surprised and excited to find out a novel was coming as well and this fed the level of awareness. 

Since the series has been so popular and there is so much enthusiasm for the character my plan now is to create three separate mini-series all of which will be published as trade paperback/graphic novels to accompany each of the three books of The Looking Glass Wars trilogy.  I may also do a pre-quel graphic novel telling of Redd’s early history and maybe a later one exploring her 13 year rule of Wonderland. 

In addition to publishing books and graphic novels, I've heard that plans are in the works for other media forms to explore the world of Wonderland and it's inhabitants.  What can we expect?

Since THE LOOKING GLASS WARS is a novel set in two dimensions, our world and Wonderland, I wanted to do as much as possible to help the reader fully experience what I’d envisioned so I decided to go beyond the confines of the written page. In the spirit of a graphic novel I created an ‘aural novel’ by producing a soundtrack much the same as a director would for a film. Since readers will be confronting unknown dimensions in the book I wanted to extend the mental dimension of the page to the aural dimension and make it that much more accessible in the hope that the world of Wonderland and its’ denizens would become that much more sensory and real to anyone who wanted to experience more.

I’ve also been approached to adapt book one of the trilogy into a Broadway musical.  There’s a lot of excitement regarding the potential, especially after the success of WICKED.

Do you feel that you will draw the line somewhere with the types of media you will use to tell your stories and expose your characters? Do you foresee a transition to the silver screen considering your past work as a producer on There's Something About Mary?

The most important thing to me is that the books stand on their own. If I can control the creative direction in various media then I will be happy to explore any and all.  What I will not be doing is licensing off the rights, crossing my fingers and hoping it all turns out especially when it comes to a movie.  At that level of expression I would be even more protective, sensitive and diligent about getting it right.

Regarding the different mediums to me they are just that -- different.  I want to be flexible in the storytelling -- for instance if I did a game version I would do the story from a different vantage point  to expand and enhance what readers already know by having the game be played through Dodge’s eyes as he grows up and battles Redd during her 13 year rule of Wonderland. This wasn’t explored much in  book one but it was set up so it is ‘story ready’.

When I first learned you were the stunt skier for John Cusack in Better Off Dead, I was very excited about reading your novel and learning more about you.  That film was a cult classic in the 80s, much in the way that There's Something About Mary became popular in the 90s. 

As I read the promotional material and began reading The Looking Glass Wars, I felt as if you were using some of the tactics used in The Blair Witch Project (another cult success); you present this work of fiction as though it is reality.  I find that very interesting and brilliant.  How has pop culture influenced you in developing this storyline and planning for more adventures to come?

My whole rationale for presenting LGW as a reality was to keep the fun going by not breaking the wall. Why expose the man behind the curtain if you can keep the fantastical in play? I think the story behind the story is a sort of meta-fiction that maintains the illusion and gives the readers that much more and makes interviews a little less predictable. 

Pop culture is how most people know Alice in Wonderland.  There are the hardcore fans who read and re-read the book and there are those who remember being read the book as children but mostly what people know about the book is what pop culture has disseminated.  Jefferson Airplane’s  White Rabbit and the drug references, Disney’s film adaptation where Alice became a blonde, endless ads using the various characters, huge films like The Matrix who reference Alice imagery and expressions, Gwen Stefani’s recent Alice in Wonderland themed music video for her song “What You Waiting For?”.  It’s endless and once you start being aware of these constant references you see even more.  This huge pop culture impression made one aspect of my story especially strong in that I write that all Imagination comes from Wonderland and influences everything imagined here on earth.  That concept came from reading Carroll’s book and seeing it as this huge explosion of unharnessed imagination. To me Carroll just went wild and so it seemed he had been infused by the wonders of Wonderland which are gifts for all of us.  And if you look at it that way the idea that Wonderland sends its gifts to our world plays out in the fact that Alice in Wonderland has been so seminal to creativity that it continues to thrive in an ever exploding popular culture. It’s the power of Imagination -- it cannot be contained.

There is a striking similarity of the Card Soldiers with the Storm Troopers in the Star Wars saga.  The visuals I've seen remind me somewhat of the robot troops seen in the prequel trilogy of Star Wars episodes I-III.  You've mentioned George Lucas and his amazing ability to monitor ownership of his creation in other interviews.  How much do you identify with Lucas, the Star Wars phenomenon and the far reaching ability he had in marketing his creation through various media to achieve such worldwide recognition?

The similarity you see between the Card Soldiers and the Storm Troopers in Star Wars probably comes from the similarity of the artist’s style.  I hired Doug Chiang to do the this particular ‘deck’ of Card Soldiers and he had done a lot of work for Lucas. These Card Soldiers are Redd’s Cut  -- one division of several that I am creating.  There are more Card Soldiers  -- both pre-Cut and post-Cut and each division is very different so there will be quite a variety of Card Soldiers as the art progresses.

George Lucas has ownership which allows him to wake up each day and  play in his own world exactly as he wishes.  If he  wishes to expand his world  he can go do television, he can direct a film...I should be so lucky.

Can you give us any idea of what fans of The Looking Glass Wars can hope to see in the future of this trilogy?

I can’t say too much but Book 2 is titled SEEING REDD so fans can expect to see much more of her Imperial Viciousness.  Homburg Molly has a prominent role as Alyss’s royal bodyguard and Alyss and Dodge are finally together only to discover that as two headstrong warriors disagreements can easily escalate.  Overall I have tried to expand the geography of Wonderland by introducing neighboring lands, rulers,  tribes and rivalries to enrich the world and the storytelling.